moments
by rodomontading
Summary: The one case Nancy Drew and Frank Hardy didn't work together was the one case in which Nancy felt she needed him most.


_one._

When Nancy Drew and Frank Hardy worked their first case together, they were six years old. Fenton and Carson were on their monthly golf outing, and Laura, Frank and Joe's mom, had said she would mind the kids for the day. They had been sitting on the couch for an hour, watching a cartoon with Joe, who was shoving Cheerios into his mouth by the handful, when Frank said, "Want to see my model trains?"

"I love model trains!" Nancy said, having just discovered her love for model trains in that moment.

She followed Frank through the downstairs and into the den, where he told her to be _very careful_ because this was his father's stuff and it was _very important_—they didn't let Joe in here as a rule. Frank's model train set was impressive, taking up a large oval-shaped table that sat to one side of the room. Fenton's desk sat across from it. There was a chair in front of the table, and Frank pointed to it.

"You can stand on there to see," he said.

"But you can't see," Nancy said, frowning.

"I see them every day. I'll hold the chair," he added gallantly, standing up straight and putting his hands on the back of the chair for emphasis.

Nancy smiled and climbed up. Frank showed her the switch to turn it on, but she hesitated. "The tracks stop," she said, and pointed.

The tracks veered off the carefully thought-out course Frank had placed them on and stopped with a dead-end at the edge of the table. Had Nancy flipped the switch, the unsuspecting train would have chugged right off the table and onto the floor. Nancy hopped down and they stood in the den with their heads together until Nancy spotted something on the floor. She crouched down and picked it up and held it up to her eye. She and Frank looked at it, then at one another. It was a Cheerio.

Frank balled his tiny hands into fists and went stomping out of the room. "_Joe_!"

_two_.

Nancy had just curled up on Frank's bed with her laptop when the phone rang. She looked up through her eyelashes: Frank and Joe were both hunched over the desktop in their room, Frank sitting in the chair and Joe standing, one hand on the back of the chair and one hand on the desk. The cordless on Frank's nightstand rang again. Neither one of them moved to get it, so Nancy put her laptop off to the side and scooted closer. She reached for it just as it rang again, and Joe glanced over.

"_No!_" he and Frank shouted at the same time, and Joe lurched forward and snatched the phone out of her hand.

Nancy stared at them. "What is _wrong_ with the two of you?"

Frank sighed. "Sorry, Nan. It's this guy we're working for. He's our mom's friend's son—"

"Say _that _five times fast," Joe added.

"—and he lost his laptop. Or says it was stolen. _Anyway_, he's kind of neurotic."

"He calls ever three-point-two-five minutes."

"Just to ask us if we've found it yet."

"It's getting exhausting, to tell you the truth."

Nancy was getting exhausted by their rapid back-and-forth, but she didn't say so. She laughed and shrugged and went back to her laptop. After the next few calls, she started to ignore the phone. When Joe finally had something substantial to tell him, he took the call in the hallway and shut the door. They could still hear him through it, his voice changing in volume as he walked up and down the hallway. Frank leaned back in the desk chair and looked at Nancy.

"When I told you we had a case, I didn't just expect you to _show up_, you know," he said, his grin betraying him.

She laughed, closing the lid of her laptop. "I wasn't doing anything important, and I never would pass up a chance to help out my favorite guy detectives on a case—even something like a missing laptop."

Frank raised an eyebrow. "Favorite guy detectives, huh?"

"Notice I added _guy_ there, because obviously I'm my own favorite detective," she said, a mischievous smile creeping onto her face.

He laughed. "Don't worry, Nan," he said. "You're my favorite detective, too."

Nancy smiled. Joe came back into the room just then, and she hurriedly opened her laptop again, feeling like he had interrupted something but unable to put her finger on what.

_three_.

"You're awfully calm about this!" Nancy shouted over the loudness of the mine cart.

She felt more than saw Frank shrug. "Years of roller coasters with Joe! You get a feel for it."

She should have been ignoring Frank's arm around her. Okay, it wasn't _really_ around her, he just had his hands on either side of the cart, but his forearm was resting against Nancy's back and she told herself that it wasn't just because there was nowhere else for him to put it. Each time they leaned the cart to take a turn that would keep them from dying, she leaned a little more into his shoulder than she had to. He didn't say anything.

She tried to think about Lori, she really did. She knew they had to get out of here before she got away, but Joe had been on the train. She trusted Joe to figure it out. It was hard to think about anything other than how close they were sitting. And not dying, but that was so much a part of her day-to-day routine that it was almost second nature by now.

"All right, Nan?"

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak as Frank threw himself to the left to turn the cart. She leaned with him, and he took his hand off the side of the cart long enough to give her forearm a squeeze. His hand was warm and, surprisingly, not sweaty; she could feel her own palms were slick and damp, and she tried to wipe them off on her skirt to no avail. Not that it mattered, of course, because she _definitely_ wasn't thinking about holding hands.

"I'd say I won't let anything happen to you," he said, close to her ear so he didn't have to shout, "but somehow I feel like that's the other way around." His breath tickled her ear when he chuckled, and she felt much more relaxed about an insane mineshaft ride than she probably should have.

They caught Lori Girard, predictably, bumping her with the corner of the mine cart as it rolled to a stop outside. Frank hopped out of the cart and helped her up off the ground just to hold her arms firmly behind her back. Joe jogged up then, clutching a stitch in his side and telling them how irresponsible they were and didn't they know he almost _died_ leaping off a moving train to try to get back to save their ungrateful necks in time.

When Ned picked her up from the airport, he asked her if anything interesting happened.

Nancy thought about Frank's arm on the small of her back, the warmth of his hand on her forearm, and shook her head. "No," she said. "Just the usual."

_four._

Nancy knocked on the door of the hotel room before she could second-guess herself and walk away. There was a sound of movement inside, of papers being hastily put away, things being scattered. She ducked her head and couldn't help but smile as she heard voices inside.

"Joe, I thought I told you to stop ordering room service!"

"I _didn't_!"

"Yeah, that's what you said _last_ time…"

"I swear!"

The door swung open, and Frank Hardy's frame filled it, looking back over his shoulder with an exasperated expression that he squashed as he turned to face the hallway. He apparently had something ready on his lips—something to send away the offending room service—that died when he saw Nancy. His eyes widened, and he sputtered for a moment in a very non-Frank way that made Nancy shuffle uncomfortably. Maybe this had been a bad idea.

"Nancy!" He rubbed his eyes, as if making sure she was real.

There was a clattering noise inside and Joe appeared behind Frank's shoulder. He grinned at her and smacked Frank on the back of the head. "I _told_ you I didn't order room service." He winked at Nancy, who smiled. "Now what are you doing, Frank? Don't just leave Nancy standing in the hallway—come in, Nan!"

Nancy followed Joe in while Frank stood to the side to let her by. The room was small, with two beds—one made, one with the covers half on the floor—and a circular table with two chairs, one of which was knocked over. Joe righted the chair and gestured for her to sit in it. Frank followed at a slower pace, still looking at her as if he couldn't believe she was real.

"When I said I wished you were here, I never thought you'd actually show up." The grin on his face told Nancy he was happier about it than he would ever say out loud.

"How could I pass up a chance to help you find the Romanov treasure?" she replied.

Frank's mystified mood continued for most of the next day. Joe was attempting to pry open a walled-off room, bracing himself with his foot and tugging on the boards. Nancy and Frank stood off to the side, not talking. Not for the first time, noticed just how _warm_ Frank's eyes were, and Joe had to clear his throat several times just to get their attention.

"Hey, you two! A little _help_, maybe?" He returned to his task mumbling something about slave labor.

_five._

The one case Nancy Drew and Frank Hardy didn't work together was the one case in which Nancy felt she needed him most.

She sat on a bench in the train station in Scotland, waiting for her train to the airport. Her dad and Ned were meeting her at the airport to bring her home. She fully expected a lecture from her dad, and both Carson and Ned would want details. Nancy wasn't sure if she was ready to talk about them just yet. She scrolled through her phone contacts and paused on Frank's name. She hadn't called him this entire trip.

It wasn't that she hadn't wanted to. She had scrolled to his name in her contacts more than anyone else's. She'd stood looking at it, at his number and his name and the picture she had taken of him in his aviator sunglasses that one night in Russia, when they stood watching the sunset while they took a breather from discussing the case. She'd looked at all of these things, her thumb hovering over the green Call button.

And then she'd called Ned.

It felt wrong—it felt wrong to call Ned when she wanted to call Frank (maybe even _because_ she wanted to call Frank) and it felt wrong to keep something so important from Frank. Did he already know? Had Carson told Fenton over their monthly golf outing? Had he canceled their golf outing? If so, had he told Fenton the reason? Would Fenton have told his sons? Surely he would have. And if he had, why hadn't Frank called?

It was making her head hurt.

She tried to sleep on the train, then again on the plane home, but her mind wouldn't let her rest. She couldn't help wondering what would have gone differently if she had called Frank and found herself smiling at the thought that Frank would never have been caught breaking into her house.

She was quieter than usual on the ride home from the airport, staring out the window more than talking. When she answered, it was mechanical, and more than once she caught Carson giving her worried glances in the rearview mirror. She fidgeted on the couch in the living room, stirring her tea for somewhere else to look. Ned sat next to her on the couch and Carson settled himself on the piano bench. They wanted her to talk about Scotland, about what had happened, what she'd found out. She tried, but she glanced over and looked at the piano, and her voice caught. This wasn't how she wanted to be telling the story. They knew most of it, anyway; she'd called them both from the hotel the night before her flight.

Ned reached for her hand, and it was too much. She put down her teacup and stood up abruptly. "I just remembered," she said. "I have somewhere I have to be."

She grabbed her keys and her purse and was backing down the driveway before either of them could ask her questions.

Bayport was too far of a drive to be convenient, but it wasn't _too_ too far. She pulled up at the curb of the Hardy residence and shut off her car. She looked at the house. It was dark. Was anyone even home? She should have checked. She knew she should have checked. Her phone was in the cupholder, and she picked it up and saw a text from Ned and a missed call from her dad and put it back down again. She should have called or texted before coming but she was here now but she couldn't just sit in front of the house if he wasn't even home because what if they had gone camping they liked to camp these were things she should have _known_ because, God, she really should have called at least _once_ what was wrong with her.

She looked at the driveway and saw his Jeep there, looking freshly washed and waxed. He had to be home.

She forced herself to take the leys from the ignition. Open the door. Lock the car. Walk up the path to the front door. Lift her hand to ring the doorbell.

What was she _doing_?

She hesitated, index finger poised. Should she ring the bell? She bit her lip, then curled her finger in with the rest of them and knocked on the door. It wasn't a hard or a loud knock. She waited for about three seconds and decided he wasn't home and she would just get back in the car and drive away and then the door swung open and there he was, wearing sweatpants and a plain t-shirt and the same surprised look he'd worn in the Russian hotel.

"Nan?" he asked.

She smiled and tried to find her voice. "Hi."

He reached for her but seemed to think better of it. She looked at his hands for a moment before looking back up at his face. Warm hands.

"Is something wrong?"

What an excellent question. Frank was always an expert at asking those questions she didn't really have the answers to.

She shook her head. "No, nothing's wrong."

His brow furrowed. "Then what is it?"

She took a deep breath. "I want to tell you about my mom."


End file.
